


a vampire and a devil walk into a bar

by shella688



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: (more or less), Character Study, Gen, character backstory, misinterpretation of said really obscure lore, referenced character death, references to really obscure lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shella688/pseuds/shella688
Summary: In the corner of a bar on the backwater planet of New Texas, a woman sips at something that may well be blood.You don't know who the woman is yet.You will.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	a vampire and a devil walk into a bar

**Author's Note:**

> There is _so much_ Doc Carmilla lore that isn't in here anyway this is a shout out to the spaceship Silvana, that doesn't get mentioned, but does sometimes leave the confines of space as we understand it and is sentient if you look at it from the right angle

Vampires don't exist.

They used to, yes. But they won't, not again, not if the woman in the corner of the darkened bar has a say in it.

This fact is important, but will not come up again, because people do not mention vampires in the presence of the woman. They know better.

She takes a long drink from the glass in front of her. When she looks at you and smiles, her sharp teeth are stained red.

The woman shifts her position slightly, and the bar seems to quieten. She doesn't talk much, but when she does it's always something worth listening to. Something worth remembering, though it doesn't always make sense.

The easiest way to become immortal, she says at last, is to simply exist. Everyone in this bar is immortal, after all. Or they all are whilst she's still here.

It's only averages, see. The woman is immortal, so on average so is everyone else here. Giving immortality, she explains, isn't so hard, just getting the numbers to dance to a song of your own making. Giving death? That's simple too, a matter of understanding the biology and then making it all stop.

The issue, she explains, is giving  _ life.  _ She's still working on that, still trying to make the facts match up to her hypothesis.

Someone brings her another drink. Payment, maybe, or just a gift. You recognise the smell of the deep liquid inside. Of course you do, your hands are coated in it.

The thing is, it's lonely -  _ she's  _ lonely. The last of her people, one of only two immortals in the known universe, a scientist with ambitions beyond what others thought right.

Her mouth twists into a snarl as she says that. 

How dare they! They who took and stole and lied and twisted and  _ broke.  _ But the woman  _ always  _ asked. She only ever wanted to  _ know  _ and for that they hated her _. _

The silence rings in your ears. It is a long while before the woman in the corner speaks again.

Once, she begins again, and now there's no sign of the previous anger, once she found a baby moon.

There are some derisive whispers at this, but the woman just waits, sipping at her drink.

She cared for it as she would have her own, though the two shared no language. The moon spoke in stars and the echo of distant suns, whilst the woman could only respond in logic, the structured numbers of her code and experiments.

As the moon grew, it took the name Aurora. It changed too, into something that could travel across space under its own power.

The two plan to go as far as they can, to the place where the map reads

_ here be dragons _

and even further, just to see what's out there.

There's a pause, and you think the woman has finished. The noise of the bar swells again, people turning back to their drinks.

And she then looks up, and she looks right at you, and she offers out a hand.

You're not sure why you go across to her. Perhaps it was the wanderlust that shone in her eyes. Maybe it was that flame of anger, something you recognise in yourself. Or maybe, even now, you knew there was nothing left for you here.

Carmilla, she introduces herself. Doctor, if you please.

And you take her hand, and grin right back at her, and bury your past with your father.

Jonny, you say. Jonny d'Ville.

  
  


***

  
  


Millenia later, after the fire and the songs, after creation and discovery and numerous ill-advised online dates. 

After the airlock, after the bar fight, after the last match has been dropped in a puddle of gasoline, the woman finds herself in a bar the flames haven't reached yet.

And she raises a glass to the empty darkness, and she gives a toast.


End file.
